Back in Puyo

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So I had my first real day back on the job. It definitely feels weird being back in Puyo and in Ecuador after being home for 12 days. I don´t know whether the weird feeling is good or bad, right now it just feels different.

This weekend, Sue and I laid low - we were exhausted after our whirlwind tour of Ohio and Maryland. I was fortunate enough to receive a phone call from my counterpart Andrea on Thursday night while I was still in Quito. She was in Quito as well and wanted to know if I would ride back to Puyo with her on Friday morning. I agreed, though, I was unsure if I was ready to talk about work yet. The decision of riding shotgun in a car vs. being in a bus seat for 5+ hours seemed like a no-brainer to me - so I agreed to travel with her.

We had a interesting return to Puyo. Apparently a few days before, her windshield was hit by a rock and cracked. She had insurance and wanted to stop by the agent´s office in Ambato. It was on the way so I said no problem. We stopped there and were pleasantly surprised at how nice and accommodating the guy was. He agreed to fix her windshield. Andrea had received an estimate of $525 to do it at the dealership in Quito. Her deductible is $250 so we decided to go to the dealership in Ambato, out of convenience (its only 2 hours from Puyo), to have them do the work. This is where the fun begins.

We arrive at the dealership and go into the office in the showroom. They then direct us to the auto repairs division which is two buildings away. We go there and find that we need to talk to the head technician. He is conveniently not there, but we are assured that he will return soon (ya mismo) which in ecuaspeak means either in 5 minutes or 5 years your guess is as good as theirs. Anyhow, we grow tired of waiting and ask another technician to help and he directs us to the director of repairs - his office is in the main building where we started out. We walk there and find the guy. He explains that even though we have an estimate from the dealership in Quito we need one from his dealership - they would not honor the one from Quito. He tells us to go see the technician in repairs to have him give an estimate. So, we walk back up to the repair facility. Luckily, the technician is now there. He directs us to his office and we wait there while he does the estimate. He comes back, prints off a page, and tells us to take it to the director of repairs in the main building. As we walk down there, we notice that the estimate has no price on it - interesting. We hand it to the director of repairs and he punches it into the computer and tells us that it will cost $275 to repair - $250 less than the estimate in Quito (which Andrea was willing to pay in the first place). The director then tells us that we must get approval from the insurance company for them to do the repairs. We explain that the insurance already approved a $525 repair. His rebuttal - ¨yeah, but that was for the dealership in Quito.¨ Andrea started speaking faster in Spanish as did he, and at this point my 12 days at home with English and 3 days in Quito with English were taking their toll. I was lost. What I eventually gathered, was that they would go ahead and do the work. The director instructed us to return to the technician to schedule a time. So…..we walked up there and…..he was gone. Just as we were about to give up, he returned and we scheduled a time with him. He then told us that we needed to go back to the director to tell him what time was scheduled. I am telling you, I witnessed efficiency at its best - we spent a good hour or hour and a half walking back and forth between two people, neither seemed to want the responsibility of helping us - yet both were willing to do the work for $250 less than those in Quito. Andrea didn´t care what the cost was - she had to pay the deductible either way.

My head hurt after the whole ordeal so Andrea and I chatted about fun stuff like marriage, our futures, Peace Corps, CODEAMA, and life in general. We eventually made it back to Puyo around 3:00pm, luckily, too late to go into the office.

The rest of Friday afternoon/early evening, I spent trying to keep track of the Indians quest to win game 2 of their series with the Yankees. The last time I checked it was 1 to 1 in the 8th and I put their fate in the hands of family and friends watching back home. You can bet that I was pleasantly surprised to get a phone call from both of my brothers each telling me of the 11th inning victory.

Susan and I celebrated, as only a married PC couple can do in Ecuador. We turned on our repaired laptop, loaded in a movie that our friends gave us and proceeded to watch 300. I think Susan really liked all the hot guys parading around topless with scant clothing below the waist. Our friend Sarah informed us that it was her favorite part as well. Other than a bunch of built guys and some swords and shields, the movie was average.

The next morning, Susan had to play basketball with the Waorani women. I chose to head into town to run some errands. Later in the day, I decided to return to one PC activity that seems to bring me joy. I baked some butterscotch and chocolate chip cookies in my toaster oven. After that I ran a little and then proceeded to start reading a new book that Sue got me Children of Hurin, a JRR/Christopher Tolkien book. I read the whole thing in about 5 hours - even though this is a new reading record for me, the book was average.

Sunday came and I discovered that OSU defeated Purdue. What better way to start a beautiful Sunday morning. Susan had another basketball game and I decided to watch this one. What I witnessed had to be every basketball coachs´ nightmare. When I showed up there were 13 people on the court all playing. I couldn´t tell whether it was 7 on 6 or 9 on 4. Come to think of it, I am not sure they knew either. Think of all the basketball rules you know and then quickly forget all of them except for out of bounds. The players here can double-dribble, travel, carry the ball, foul without remorse, push and shove, but if the ball goes out of bounds everything stops and decency returns to the court. Susan was probably the tallest on the court, but when rules don´t exist being tall means nothing. There were a handful of men playing as well and from my keen observation they didn´t appear to be any better than the women. In fact, if I were to pick a team, I would most likely pick the women, they just look tougher. Through all the chaos on the court, the fouls, and the lack of rules, I discovered one very important uniting theme - everyone was having a blast. I watched for an hour and in that time I think the score was tied 8 to 8.

After the game we came home and relaxed. Later we walked into town to check out the Browns score - yes I admit it, I am somewhat hooked on sports right now - my favorite teams are all doing well. Anyhow, they lost to New England, yet it appeared as though they didn´t embarrass themselves and this alone is success in my book.

Later than afternoon, Sue and I proceeded to read 4 weeks worth of Dispatch editorials and letters to the editor. We both came to the conclusion that there are still a lot of wacko people back in Central Ohio. If you don´t believe me read some letters to the editor when you get a chance. And if you are reading this blog and are not from Central Ohio, don´t fret, I am sure you get your daily dose of wackos too, wherever you may call home. They have surrounded us - the wackos that is, how did this happen, how have they multiplied? I haven´t escaped them by coming to Ecuador, I think they are following me.

Now, I am back in the office on a Monday. Our office apparently has two new interns working here. Their first day was today. Neither will be working directly with me on my projects, but I am sure our work with overlap some. I am hoping that by having them here for the next 4 months, it will give me some much needed free-time to focus in on my current projects with CODEAMA.

I showed Pablo my new external hard drive that our friends gave us - it is loaded with music and movies. Pablo was like a kid in a candy store when he saw the music that was on it. He has spent the afternoon copying files to his computer.

Well, time to go back to work. I just wanted to give you all an update from Puyo.

Peace,
Jeremy

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